Which Books are Best for Learning Session Tunes?

[srt19170]

Of the many books out there, I have serious reservations about McCulloughs 4CD-tunebook because he notates all the rolls as triplets

IIRC, I was confused for some time because LEM notes some rolls as two cuts, e.g., he'll notate a roll on B as A-B-A.

My practice when learning a new tune -- and I'd recommend this to any beginner -- is to go to the Tunefinder or the Session and look at the various versions of the tune you'll find there. Wherever you got your sheet music -- LEM or your local session book -- it's likely that it includes ornaments and variations. Looking at other versions of the tune will give you a good feeling for possible variations, and helps identify the basic "skeleton" of the tune that underlies all the variants.

Obviously you can do the same thing with recordings.

-- Scott

[skh]

I was very confused about the comments on L.E. McCullough's book, because I also have a tunebook accompanied by 4 CDs from him, until I noticed that it's a different one: The Complete Irish Tinwhistle Tunebook (it has 125 tunes). I find the notation very honestly bare-boney. Compared to the same tunes' notation at thesession.org, it uses less triplets and more dotted quarters with wiggly signs above, to indicate the "something could happen here".

I actually don't play rolls or ornamentation on all of these, as I'd be practising only rolls and nothing else then. However, could someone who has both books give a short comparison? The one I have is (c) 2002 Oak Publications.

Sonja

[Sara]

I'm not sure if this suggestion was already posted, but I like "Ireland's 110 Best Session Tunes" - really good book; comes with two CDs.

Cheerio.

[Ridseard]

I'm not sure if this suggestion was already posted, but I like "Ireland's 110 Best Session Tunes" - really good book; comes with two CDs.

That's a really good one, as is the "110 Best Tin Whistle Tunes" book and CDs, which also contains a number of well-known session tunes.

[colomon]

For example, the Legacy Jig, which is a notable tune because it begins with three rolls in a row, is notated as three triplets in a row. I have a ton of Irish records, but I don't have Legacy on any of em. Had I not seen it somewhere else on music paper and/or learned by feel that jigs often have pronounced rolls in key places, I might think that is the way its played. Same with Morrison's. So then, if there really is a commonly played triplet, you don't know whether to roll it or not, except by feel and exposure.

I think this is the wrong way of looking at it. The Legacy Jig starts with a G B high G pattern on the first three beats. They can be played as rolls, yes, but they can also be played GF#G BAB GF#G or as quarter-eighth note patterns or as just plain dotted quarter notes, or any combination thereof, all with equal validity. G B high G is the core of the tune, and anything else is just an ornamentation you hang off of it.

In 121 FIST, LE consistently notates this sort of thing in jigs with the three eights pattern (middle eighth down a step, or maybe up if the first note is D). It wouldn't be my first choice, but it is a reasonable way to write down the jigs. All that is lacking is a nice paragraph in the front of the book explaining what he is doing.

As for whether or not you can substitute a roll, I think you can always substitute a roll for that note pattern. They are really pretty much the same musical idea. (And note that if you listen to LE's recording, he uses the eighths on the slow version, and throws in a bunch of rolls on the fast version.)

Now, the way he notates off-beat rolls in reels drives me mad... don't know what he was thinking.

It's interesting that LE's book of his own tunes is full of rolls.... Perhaps because it isn't targeted at beginners?

[The Weekenders]

I dunno Col. I would rather see a dotted quarter in those places. After you have had the roll sound reinforced in your ears by various versions on cds etc., a basic jig triplet sounds wrong to my ears in key places on some of the popular jigs. Like the first two in Morrison for example. A difference in exposure...maybe you have heard more than me...

[colomon]

My first two bars of Morrison's is almost completely different than LE's, anyway. I almost always start with an E roll, followed by BEB, then EGB and finally back to the standard AFD. I think this is because I learned this distinctive version very early, and hardly ever play the tune anymore, as it is terribly overplayed and very unfashionable in these parts. These days my playing tends to use a lot more variation, and in jigs, I switch back and forth between three eighths, a roll, and other note combinations very interchangably.

On further reflection, I think using three eighths instead of rolls in a book aimed at beginners makes great sense. In practice, when I used this book regularly to learn tunes, I almost always substituted in rolls -- but my ability to roll wasn't really quite up to the demands I was placing on it, and my playing probably would have been quite noticably better had I played the tunes as written.

(Mind you, some bits in the book are just plain wrong, and many of the tune names seem non-standard -- but that's true of every traditional tune collection I've ever seen. 121 FIST is probably the most accurate one I've run into. And it's a great collection of tunes -- every time I get around to peeking in it again, I see a couple of tunes that I have recently learned were in there all along...)

[Caj]

I have L.E.'s book (121 FIST) and I only see 2 versions of each tune on the CDs, not 3. The two versions aren't very different from one another in terms of speed, but the first version has Mr. McCullough announcing the title. This opens up another educational opportunity: play the CDs on your stereo in "randomize" mode, and learn to guess the tune names. Half the time you'll be given a hint.

What I don't like about the book is that all the recordings are very sedate, not just because of the slow speed but the style of play, accompaniment etc.

In the end, I agree that your best bet is to go to a local session and get a list of popular tunes there.

Caj

[colomon]

Noodling around on some jigs, I just thought of another thing in favor of writing out the eighths rather than indicating a roll. Sometimes the the middle note "should" be a step down (beginning of Kesh, for instance), and sometimes it should be two steps down (eg beginning of Lark in the Morning). If you write a roll there, you lose the information of which note to go down (or up) to.

[Dorcas]

Hiya I'm in the same position, so I have found a good session, and from session to session ask what tunes they are playing, go to the internet and either download or search abc or midi files then hopefully in future sessions I can join in, which I was able to do so this week. Keep to one session as the liklihood of the tunes appearing frequently will give you more confidence.

:roll:

[Bloomfield]

I think the main problem with McCullough's approach to rolls (in 121 FIST) isn't even the way he notates them, though I disapprove of his notation. The problem is the way he plays "rolls" in the slow version of the tunes. He really plays eight-note+triplet. That can really ruin your playing stylistically, I think. On the fast version, he plays rolls as delayed rolls rather than straight rolls: daaaaahblabla instead of DaahBlahBlah. That is a stylistic choice I can respect, even though I prefer straight rolls (especially for beginners & intermediates). I've pretty much stopped using the 121 FIST, but if I do use it, I only use the "fast" versions. They're still plenty slow to learn from.

[peeplj]

Don't forget the Virtual Session! Some great tunes, you can see the score, and you can play along. It's at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/sessions/

As for learning by ear, I am always really simply amazed to hear it advocated in place of (contrast that with "along with") sheet music.

Maybe the people I have known are peculiar; I don't know. I do know that even among accomplished musicians for every one I have known who could pick a tune out of the ether just by listening, there have been ten who could not, but were still fine musicians--sometimes extremely accomplished--in their own right.

I am developing the ability to learn a tune in real time, but it's an ongoing process, and there are some days I'm better at it than others. And you know what has helped me learn to do it more than anything else? Sightreading. That's right: sheet music. I love to take something like O'Niells 1800 and sit down and just open it anywhere and start playing through the tunes.

You know why this works? Almost all trad tunes seem to be made out of the same common "building blocks." Just as an example, how many reels can you think of off the top of your head, for instance, where an e-g-d alternation (pedal) is a cornerstone of the tune? The New Policeman, the Traveller, Trim the Velvet, Touch Me if You Dare, the Four Hand Reel, Glen Allen...and that's just a few off the top of my head. There are many more.

My point to this unexpected rant of mine? Expecting a beginner or even an advanced intermediate player to be able to record the tunes at a fast session and then just go learn them seems really pretty out there to me. I think it's a recipe for frustration, although I'll grant you it's probably an effective way to weed out all but the pathologically dedicated players.

What do I advocate?

It's already been said, here in this thread, and in other places also: listen to the tunes while following on the sheet music. Listening is vital, because there is so much style and rhythm that just can't be notated in this music. You can't learn it without spending some quality time listening very attentively to it.

What the sheet music can help with is getting the notes down in the right order--and, later on when you're past the beginning stages, looking at the sheet music can often show you the basic structure of the tune.

I think using the dots, along with your ears, makes the most sense and gets the tune under your fingers the fastest.

Sorry about the rant, folks...I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...

--James

[StevieJ]

As for learning by ear, I am always really simply amazed to hear it advocated in place of (contrast that with "along with") sheet music.

I started off with Irish music very much in the way you describe James, in my case hearing tunes on record and then looking for them in collections to try to get me started on the right note at least. So I very well appreciate that using dots can appear to speed up the process of acquiring tunes in the early stages.

But I still think that it makes very good sense to advocate learning by ear <i>in place</i> of sheet music. Why?

a) it will very soon liberate you from the need to find a written source before you can learn a tune

b) it will develop your ear in a way that using sheet music never can, making it easier for you to begin to "own" the tunes.

c) but to me the real clincher is not an argument but an observation. It comes from many years of teaching fiddle and whistle and following the progress of loads of people whom I haven't taught starting out in Irish music.

I've not met a single player who continued to rely on sheet music who developed into a halfway decent player of Irish trad. Not one.

To put it another way, I've never met anyone I would call a good all-round player who didn't learn mainly by ear. OTOH I have met many people who had never freed themselves of sheet music and remained mediocre to put it kindly. My experience may not amout to conclusive scientific proof but I don't think this is a coincidence.

Let anyone use books if they think it helps them, but if they really want to develop in ITM, they'll have to kick them sooner or later. Better sooner than later.

(Note, as I have also said before, sheet music becomes useful again once you know what you're doing.)

[MurphyStout]

From my own learning curve, I agree totally with what Steve said. I could have learned tunes forever just listening to recordings and playing off sheet music, and I would have sucked forever because of it. My rhythm, feel, ornaments, all that other good stuff would have never been established. I would have sucked forever, fooreevveerr, ffooorreeevvveeerrr...... Since I've quit sheet music everything is beginning to come around and I'm getting the impression that maybe in 3 or so years I might become a pretty decent player.

So I guess I'm saying it's better and easier to play what you hear, then it is to listen, read, and try to match the two all at the same time to try to learn how to properly play the tune.

So I think the Jedi's have it right on this one. "Feel, don't think." Hear the music, be the music, play the music, don't think about the music and don't read about the music. Let the music flow through you and don't rush the endings.

And about the 110 Ireland's Best Session tunes, that book is garbage and the versions they put in there are certianly not used in Ireland. I know, I learned some tunes from there and wasn't able to use em in Ireland. So if you want my advice, don't get it and use your ear.

[LeeMarsh]

I've had the fortune to sit in on a number of sessions from Baltimore, to Houston, to Iowa, and points between. One thing I've come to appreciate, is that most of the sessions I've attended all seem to have preferred settings of tunes. AND usually half of them are different that what I've heard elsewhere.

So I'd suggest, learn the bones of the tune and then learn 2 or 3 settings of it. When you go to a session, you will already be able to handle them playing it differently and be able to adjust, even if its a setting you've never heard before. Morrison's Jig is a good example, I have several recordings and have heard it in most of the sessions that I've attended. I'd estimate that I've heard a good dozen different ways to play the tune, that still are true to the bones and identifiable as Morrisons. If your there to be right, well then you've missed the point. If you're there to connect with a bunch of folks, you need to be flexible in accepting a number of setting or variations of the common tunes.

Some one mentioned Norbert's ABC database, If you pick a widely known tune and search for it often you'll get 20 transcriptions. If you go through them, some will be the same, but usually you identify several setting. Becoming familiar with each, will help you connect with folks that are playing their favorite setting. You may also find a setting that seems to just click with you, a setting that you seem more connected with, a version that just seems to flow through your fingers. Then you say "aaahhh", and understand that you found your own favorite setting. One you can lead and the other's can follow. Then the second, "aahh", occurs, when you realize you what it means to you in a session to have others follow and connect with your setting, instead of pushing their own.

Just my suggestion on how I've come to enjoy the variety of how you ...